The Macdrifter Kid's Movie Index

My daughter is now four years old and in the intervening years between birth and now, I’ve carefully and not so subtly influenced her taste in movies. When the little girls in her class were asked what their favorite movie was many spontaneously erupted with squeals of joy for The Little Mermaid and Lion King. My daughter chose Star Wars. I win.1

This pinnacle of parenting prowess was reached as a result of careful and considered movie selections by dear old dad. I pre-screen and review everything to make sure they satisfy three requirements.

  1. It must have some social or intellectual benefit to a toddler
  2. It must not be a social or intellectual detriment to a parent
  3. I must be able to sit through repeated sequential viewings

For anyone that may also be in the same boat, I’ve prepared this tool for picking good movies that are also tolerable.2

My ideal movies are in the upper right quadrant of the bubble chart. Those are movies that both an adult (me) and a four year old (my daughter) can enjoy together, repeatedly. The size of the bubble represents my perceived social or educational value (larger is better).3

The table below can be sorted by clicking a column. The chart and table are interactive. Selecting a movie in one will highlight it in the other.4

If you’re interested in purchasing a movie, I have a bunch of affiliate links at the bottom of the post. But, fear not, you can mess around with the table and chart without launching a URL.


Get Em

The links below are there in case you want to check out any of these movies for yourself. Most links are for iTunes purchases where possible. Where there is not an iTunes option, the links take you to the DVD on Amazon. All links are affiliate links.

  1. Of course she means Episode V. My first child chose Episode I. I returned that child. ↩︎

  2. There are “good” movies that are enjoyable by a child and provide some social benefit, like Dora the Explorer. However, Dora’s voice is engineered specifically to debilitate a parent’s will to say “no” and hypnotize a child into a commercialized zombie state. ↩︎

  3. I found it interesting that these fall on a trend line. Good movies are just good at any age. ↩︎

  4. It’s nothing special. I used the Google Charts API. ↩︎